Target on Friday, he told employees he planned to end the streak internal programs designed to increase the recruitment of diverse candidates in the company, the latest a dramatic change in front of the newly elected president Donald Trumpis the second White House appointment.
Janelle Gale, vice president of people at Meta, made the announcement on the company’s Workplace internal communications forum.
Among the changes, Meta ends the company “A versatile approach to slate” considering qualified candidates from underrepresented groups for its open roles. The company is also putting an end to its diversity supplier program and its equity and inclusion training programs.
Gale also announced the disbandment of the company’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, or DEI, team, and said Chief Diversity Officer Meta Maxine Williams will transition into a new role focused on accessibility and engagement.
Several Meta employees responded to Gale’s post with comments criticizing the new policy.
“If you don’t stand by your principles when the going gets tough, those aren’t values. They’re hobbies,” one employee posted in a comment to which more than 600 colleagues responded.
DEI’s policy change follows a series of sweeping policy reversals by the social media company this month. Last week, Meta replaced head of global affairs Nick Clegg with Joel Kaplan, a company veteran with longtime ties to the Republican Party. on Tuesday, Mark Zuckerberg announced a new speech policy this included the termination of the company’s third-party fact-checking program.
Axios was the first to report the DEI at the social media company is changing. Meta did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Below is Gale’s full internal memo, obtained by CNBC.
Hi everyone,
I wanted to share some of the changes we are making to our hiring, development and procurement practices. Before we get into the details, there is some important background to lay out:
The legal and policy framework surrounding diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts in the United States is changing. The United States Supreme Court recently issued decisions that signal a shift in how courts will approach DEI. It reaffirms long-held principles that discrimination based on inherent characteristics should not be tolerated or promoted. The term “DEI” has also come under fire, in part because it is understood by some as a practice that suggests preferential treatment of some groups over others.
At Meta, we have the principle of serving everyone. This can be achieved through cognitively diverse teams, with differences in knowledge, skills, political views, backgrounds, perspectives and experiences. Such teams are better at innovating, solving complex problems and identifying new opportunities which ultimately helps us fulfill our ambition to build products that serve everyone. On top of that, we’ve always believed that no one should be given — or denied — opportunities because of protective characteristics, and that hasn’t changed.
Given the changing legal and political environment, we are introducing the following changes:
- In recruiting, we will continue to find candidates from diverse backgrounds, but we will stop using a diverse list approach. This practice has always been the subject of public debates and is currently contested. We believe there are other ways to build an industry-leading workforce and leverage teams of world-class people from all kinds of backgrounds to build products that work for everyone.
- Previously, we finished with the goals of the representation of women and ethnic minorities. Having targets can create the impression that decisions are made based on race or gender. Although this has never been our practice, we want to eliminate any impression of this.
- We are phasing out our supplier diversity efforts within our broader supplier strategy. This effort was focused on sourcing from various proprietary companies; in the future, we will focus our efforts on supporting small and medium-sized enterprises, which drive a large part of our economy. Opportunities will continue to be available to all qualified suppliers, including those who are part of the supplier diversity program.
- Instead of equity and inclusion training programs, we will build programs that focus on how to apply fair and consistent practices that reduce bias for everyone, regardless of your background.
- We will no longer have a team focused on DEI. Maxine Williams is taking on a new role at Meta focused on accessibility and engagement.
What remains the same are the principles we have used to guide our human practices:
- We serve everyone. We are committed to making our products accessible, useful and universally effective for everyone.
- We build the best teams with the most talented people. This means finding people from diverse applicant pools, but never making hiring decisions based on protected characteristics (eg race, gender, etc.). We will always judge people as individuals.
- We strive for consistency in employment practices to ensure fairness and objectivity for all. We do not give preferential treatment, additional opportunities or undue credit to anyone based on protected characteristics. Nor will we devalue influence based on these characteristics.
- We build connection and community. We support our communities of employees, the people who use our products, and those in the communities. We run our employee communities (MRG) which are still open to everyone.
Meta has the privilege of serving billions of people every day. It’s important to us that our products are accessible to everyone and useful in promoting economic growth and opportunity around the world. We remain focused on serving everyone and building a multi-talented, leadership workforce from all walks of life.
